God never exaggerates His love for me, it is the same yesterday, and today and forever.

The house is quiet now, although a few hours ago it was thumping with
all kinds of noise and chatter. Once again, the Gracious Mistress of
the Parsonage and I sponsored another Thanksgiving dinner.
My role, of course as in previous years, is to stay out of the kitchen
and let the wife do what only the wife can do. My sponsorship is
finished right there.
Now everything is quiet and I am sitting back reflecting on the
marvelous dinner and time with the family. In the quietness of the
time, I began to think about those Thanksgiving dinners with my
grandmother back in “the day.” They all blur together, but the one
thing that stands out from everything is my grandmother's marvelous
turkey and all the trimmings and went with it.
As I was thinking about that, I remembered some of my relatives who
faithfully joined us for that marvelous Thanksgiving dinner. What great
times we had.
There was Uncle Ralph, for instance. He was a fisherman, or so he said,
and had so many fishing stories I could write a book. If half of what
he said in his stories were true, there should not be any fish left in
the world. He would entertain us with all those marvelous fishing
stories of his. Being a young person, I believed everything he said.
After all, what uncle would lie to his nephew?
Then I cannot forget Uncle Andrew. He was the hunter in the family. If
the deer population is on the brink of extinction, it is because of
Uncle Andrew. According to him, no deer was safe from him. All except
for one.
As he told the story, he was out hunting early one Saturday morning and
ran across the biggest deer he had ever seen in his life. According to
him, this deer went easily 1,000 pounds. As he focused that deer in his
scope, he noticed the deer was staring at him. As he looked at that
deer and looked into those big brown tear filled eyes good old Uncle
Andrew broke down.
He put down his rifle, walked over to that huge deer, shook his hoof and
said, “My friend, I just want to wish you a good day.” With that, he
turned around and walked away from the largest deer that ever lived in
the world.
It took me years to realize no deer ever comes near the 1000-pound
trophy that he talked about.
Then I remembered Aunt Sally. Boy, did she have stories to tell.
According to her stories, she was the world's most frugal shopper. If
there ever was a bargain in the world, it was negotiated by Aunt Sally.
If what she said was anywhere near the neighborhood of truth, all the
shopkeepers downtown paid her just to come and haul stuff out of their
store.
She could negotiate to the point, or so she said, that the stores would
pay her to buy items in their store. I never could figure out how that
worked. As she would toss out the figures, I started doing a little bit
of arithmetic and all I can say is, my arithmetic teacher did not teach
me everything about arithmetic.
I would not go so far as to say these relatives of mine lied. As far as
they were concerned, a lie is a devious intent to hurt someone. If you
knew my relatives, that was the furthest thing from their mind.
Thinking about those relatives and their stories, I can see where I
inherited some of that inclination. The thing I have that those
relatives did not have was the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. That
makes all the difference in the world.
Whenever I get started on one of my stories, she stares at me with one
of “those stares,” and says, “Seriously?” Believe me that takes all the
wind out of my sails.
So, with another Thanksgiving dinner under my belt, I have the privilege
of all of those wonderful memories. Family is made up of memories. I do
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